Harry steered me out of earshot of the others and said, ‘I was a complete dickhead not to get in touch, I know. But one thing’s for sure, Ruby – I missed you.’ He clutched me to his chest in a bear hug. ‘All the little things that annoyed the bejesus out of me – your inability to kill a spider or get a lid off a jar . . . The way you can’t read the paper without bloody well demolishing it, or fold maps back up along the creases – Well, I find all those little habits so endearing now. I really do. It sounds nuts, but I wanna be with you every moment of every day – especially when you can’t get a lid off a jar. I really, really missed you – I missed you all the time, like when I couldn’t find the salad spinner – where is that bloody thing kept, by the way? – or when I was trying to fold the washing without creasing it – how do you do that? – and in the mornings, when I couldn’t find clean overalls and was late for work. I mean,’ he blundered on, ‘you’re the only the person who can look in the bathroom cabinet and find the toenail clippers, which aren’t there.’

‘So,’ I recapped, incredulous. ‘You love me because of my toenail-clipper-locating abilities, washing-folding prowess, clean-overall-finding powers and salad-spinner storage?’

‘No! Yes . . . Look, what I’m trying to say is, it’s the little things in a marriage that add up to make the big picture. And that picture is . . .’ Harry squirmed with discomfort. The word was on his tongue, but he just couldn’t spit it out. ‘Love,’ he finally regurgitated.

Harry’s comment was so treacly-sweet it wouldn’t have been out of place on a British boarding-school pudding. When I was too astounded to respond, Harry ploughed on nervously.

‘What happened to those two kids who used to surf and sail together, and swim in the nuddy down at Bundeena Beach, and make love in the moonlight, and laugh till our lips fell off?’

‘They got busy cheering on toddlers for pooing in the potty,’ I explained, flatly.

‘You’re right, Rubes. And when we weren’t applauding bowel movements we were doing the bloody school run and attending parent–teacher nights and taking it in turns to drive across town at one in the morning to pick up kids from festivals, and arguing about pocket money, and parties, and which one of us was the most exhausted.’

‘Dear god, I was so bored helping with math homework I could see my plants engaging in photosynthesis,’ I concurred with a sigh.

‘Exactly, hon. We lost each other in there, somewhere. But all the reasons we fell in love, Ruby, way back when we were kids – well, they’re still there. And in the time we have left, I wanna rekindle it all . . .’